Tuesday, 10 January 2017

THEN AND THE ART OF WAR - PI

Heres the first part of an occassional series highlighting Army toys from the sixties. With the Cuban Missile Crisis, Viet Nam, the Cold War and countless other battles in the news, toymakers seized the opportunity to put guns and tanks in every boys hand. Alongside the Topper Rocket Base, was the Armoured Battalion, clearly frombthe same stable of toy design. With atomic bombs and nuclear shells on the horizon, Topper showed us what a full on heavy howitzer and missile launching half track could do.
Although non motorised, these toys were tough and durable and like the Titan rocket, packed quite a punch.

3 comments:

I agree with Tone Bill, these are stunning and solve a mystery for me, the origin of the Super Pantera toy by Guisval of Spain, which is a distant relative of the SpaceX cricket! See what I mean http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JH0EOQx60m8/UaJwicIJy0I/AAAAAAAAaa4/OHMkRvXXmdA/s1600/cricket+truck+spain+1+13.jpg

The canon is so cool as well. I loved my die cast canons when I was a young fusilier using matchsticks for ammo! The Topper Canon was a contender for the origin of the Project SWORD Scramble Bug Wheels last year when I was researching them [the Alps Lunar Explorer were the actual Bug wheel origin in the end]. And that long holed rear stand on the canon reminds me of something on the Jonny Seven! It was Topper after all!